May 2014

Web services, as we’ve learned throughout this series, are integral to the workings of Windows Azure Pack. Every UI exposed to the user connects to the backend via web service, every resource provider is managed by Windows Azure Pack through their own web services, and 3rd party functionality can be tied in through web services. It’s an SOA world. Last time we looked at the Tenant Public API and how it uses client certificates for authentication. Client certificates are paradoxically complex beasts while also being the easiest authentication method for 3rd parties to use. This is because you don’t really need to…

It’s been a couple months since we last looked at Windows Azure Pack so before we jump into the thick of it lets recap. Windows Azure Pack is an awesome on-premise private cloud platform The interactive portions are broken down into two sections: admin areas and tenant areas It relies on JWTs as bearer tokens to authenticate between UI surfaces and backend web services It uses federation to authenticate users at two separate Security Token Services using WS-Federation A JWT is used as the token in the WS-Fed protocol You can use your own STS or ADFS to authenticate users All coming back now? Good!…